NCP smells ‘political vendetta’ backs Chhagan Bhujbal

New Delhi, Mar. 15 (ANI): Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Majeed Memon on Tuesday dubbed the arrest of his party colleague Chhagan Bhujbal in connection with the Maharashtra Sadan scam to be a ‘political vendetta’ and expressed confidence that the latter would come out clean in the days to come.

“The NCP has full faith in Mr. Bhujbal, he has been a very senior leader in Maharashtra. We will stand by him and we will see that he gets justice and we absolutely have no hesitation that he will come clean for this in the days to come. It is purely a case of political vendetta,” Memon told ANI here.

“The ED ordinarily does not arrest a person because arrest is not part of any punishment. In all cases, they complete the investigation, file the chargesheet in the court and the court summons and the accused appears in the trail. But that did not happened in the case of Bhujbal ji primarily because it is totally a politically motivated action,” he added.

Memon further said that there was no need at all to arrest Bhujbal as he was cooperating with the investigation.

“Mr. Bhujbal has been attending the calls of the ED officers, responding to the questions and cooperating in the investigation. Therefore, there was no need at all to arrest him. Because nobody apprehended that Mr. Bhujbal would run away or any allegation that he is tempering the evidence,” said the NCP leader.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) last night arrested Bhujbal, a former deputy chief minister of Maharashtra and senior NCP leader, in connection with an investigation into government contracts he awarded as public works department minister during the previous Congress-NCP regime in Maharashtra.

He was arrested last night after the ED officials questioned him for more than eleven hours at its Mumbai office.

The move comes after the arrest of Bhujbal’s nephew Sameer by the ED last month. Sameer is currently lodged in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail. Bhujbal’s son Pankaj has also been questioned in the case.

The ED has filed two FIRs against the Bhujbals’ and others under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to probe the Delhi-based Maharashtra Sadan construction scam and the Kalina land grabbing case.

The ED has also ordered attachment of three properties with an estimated worth of over Rs. 280 crore. (ANI)